Cambridge University Gliding Club

As you may be aware, the dates for the IUTW have been pushed back a week and are now 19th to 27th July. The IUTW is a massed competition between university gliding clubs, where points are achieved for doing almost anything - from first solo to cross-country flights.

This means there is no real excuse for not entering, so let's put out a big contingent and come top of the table! Let me know if you're keen.

"Rise above the rest" - RAF Advertising slogan, and the League's new motto.

About the League-Ladder

This year brings an exciting new competition to the world of CUGC: a Cuppers League! Flights are made in accordance with the Varsity rules, plus a few additions, given below.

Each college's scores are summed throughout the season, and the college with the highest total by the summer vacation wins! As does the pilot with the highest single score...

Results

Congratulations to Graham Bell (Jesus College) for pretty much destroying the competition.

The league is now closed. Last updated 04/08/2008 

Five Top Scoring Flights:

• 17/04/2008: Graham Bell - 142pts
• 23/05/2008: Martin Hughes - 83pts
  
• 22/04/2008: Martin Hughes - 62pts (incl. time penalty)
  
• 14/03/2008: Graham Bell - 45pts (time only)
  
• 27/02/2008: Graham Bell - 44pts (time only)

College Scores: 

1. Jesus College: 324pts
2. St. Catharine's College: 234pts
3. Wolfson College: 92pts
4. Trinity College: 26pts
5. Fitzwilliam College: 17pts
   
6. Trinity Hall: 13pts

Cautions:

• Peter Buchlovsky (29/05/2008) - For thermalling over the final turn. Kudos for optimism (after a mighty 15 minutes of flying), but not a great example to set to us peons ;-)
  

Rules

1. For the purposes of scoring the rules shall be as the Varsity match, more details here.
2. Flights may be made at any time during the 'season', which shall end at the summer vacation
3. Flights must be made from the winch
4. Flights must land at the starting airfield
5. Flights less than 10 minutes shall be unscored
6. Circuits and approaches shall be flown as normal

Breaches of the rules will be dealt with by disqualification of the affected flight, with the exception of rule #6, which may result in disqualification for the whole season (at the discretion of the adjudicator)

Scoring

Submit logger traces to mch46 for scoring. Someday, an automated system might appear here.

After a false start in May Week due to weather we finally made it down to RAF Bicester yesterday to fly our annual competition. After suffering through a morning's weather so bad the temptation was to shift to a spot-landings comp the clouds eventually broke and it became soarable (just) at about 2pm. With very difficult conditions both teams found it extremely hard to make significant height gains and most flights fell well short of 35 minutes (our set flight time for the day) let alone the 50 required by the original rules! In the end though, a trio of strong performances from Nick Laux (flying a K8), Adam Spikings (K13) and Peter Buchlovsky (K8) sealed the day, with us eventually winning by 112 points to 85.

A special mention to Nick who took the longest flight of the day and also the largest height gain (26 minutes and 800 feet) but thanks to everyone on the team for competing, to everyone at WGC for letting us turn up and fly, and last but not least to the OUGC team who provided good competition and good company!

The 2007 Varsity Team was:

• Martin Hughes (Capt)
• Nick Laux
• Adam Spikings
• Peter Buchlovsky
• Rebecca Ward 

We're going to Bicester to (hopefully) beat Oxford in our annual Varsity match. Let Martin (mch46) know if you're keen to fly or you might be missed off of the team list! More details nearer the time.

Our final blog entry - a two parter today! Before we start with Adam's story, with my own underneath, I'd like to say:

Thank you everyone who turned up! I hope you all had a good trip - I certainly enjoyed it. (Mostly ;-) ) Thanks especially to Peter O'Donald and Peter Warner for so patiently instructing for the week, and to the MGC instructors and staff for looking after us. I look forward to seeing everyone back in Cambridge - or on the next expedition!

Anyway: On with the story - For our final day, Adam writes:

Adam's story:

The clouds were hanging low in the sky again. The wind was northerly at about 15 knots. The forecast was predicting similar conditions until the following week. It looked like we’d had the flying we were going to have as we all spent the morning packing to leave. The weather improved to bordering on flyable when the cloud base lifted a little, and at 10 the MGC instructors decided to give it a go and opened the hangar doors. For half of us it was not to be; Phil left as the hangar doors were unlocked with myself, Peter and Becca aboard. We were dropping Becca off at the station in Shrewsbury and then we were faced with a drive which was predicted to be 6 hours. We headed south towards Gloucester and Severn Valley Sailplanes first. The clouds had some breaks in them, allowing bright sunlight to stream through, but it didn’t look particularly good for soaring. At Gloucester we had to navigate our way down some very narrow twisty roads down into the river valley where the old farm which was now a set of workshops for Severn Valley Sailplanes was located. Phil’s Jantar trailer was sitting outside, but we didn’t get to assess the damage to the plane resulting from Phil’s last attempt to kill himself. That would be left for Gransden when we got home. Along with the plane, Phil picked up the damage assessment form with ‘Beyond economical repair’ written at the bottom of it, and we hooked up the trailer to the car. Now came the interesting challenge of getting the trailer through the old farm gates. We scraped the end on the floor as we went up the rise and the sharp turn onto the road got the wheel-guard in contact with the inside wall, but we just managed to squeeze through. Off to Oxford, listening to Radio 1 on the way. Oxford was three hours away with Phil’s speed limited by the trailer. Phil was puffing away on a pack of cigarettes as we moved, and Peter and I laughed as the radio reported the drug reclassification reports that ‘tobacco was the fifth most lethal drug in the U.K’. Phil smoking didn’t worry us though; both me and Peter knew that he would find innumerable other imaginative ways of killing himself before the fags got him.

Between Gloucester and Oxford the weather looked much better. The synopsis that morning was for two occluded fronts approaching from both east and west, and we were in the area between them. I got a text from Martin to say that it was soarable at the Mynd but nothing to be desired, and we arrived in Oxford after five hours of driving. Another headache with the trailer; there was no way in hell that we were going to be able to navigate a 10 metre glider trailer round Oxford, so we had to leave it somewhere outside. We solved it by finding a service station, unhooking the glider from the car, and me and Peter stopped for food whilst Phil went down into Oxford to pick up the cable hook he had had refurbished. Half an hour later he was back; the trailer was re-hitched and off we went towards Cambridge. It was taking a lot longer than the six hours we’d anticipated. Eight and a half hours after leaving the Mynd, at half past six, we arrived at Gransden. Flying had finished and everything was away. The sun was setting as we pulled the trailer into it’s parking space and opened the rear doors. Out came the Jantar, looking surprisingly intact for a write-off. Minor damage to the right wing, a broken undercarriage door and a crack in the skin coming off the trailing edge of the right wing connection on the fuselage were the only visible signs of damage. But inside the fuselage a compression member had failed, and although replaceable, half of the glider would have to be cut out and reattached to do it. Phil was thinking of keeping the Jantar for a project or maybe a simulator, but as Peter took some photos it was clear that she would not be flying again for many years, perhaps never. I also called Martin to find out where Beta Team was; not started back yet was the reply. They had just closed the hangar doors, and were hoping to get back in three hours. That meant 10 in the evening.

We arrived in Cambridge just before 8, after nearly ten hours of driving and trailer-hitching. We dropped Peter off at his house, then we continued on to Phil’s where I’d be staying before going home the next day. We partially unloaded the car and flopped down to try to recover. Becca had told me off that morning for not telling her that it was my birthday in two days, and had organised a pub-meet at 8:30 as a celebration of both my 19^th and a good week of flying. She’d arrived back mid-afternoon as the trains were much faster than a car and trailer, and was the only one who’d had time to recover from the journey. I left for the Mitre a little late - we didn’t stay long, we went off to Gardies for food, where peter and Phil joined us, then back to Phil’s and spent the night listening to my Lemon Jelly ’64 – ’95 DVD and playing card games. Martin and Donnie joined us just past 10, joining in with the drinks and chat, and the party began to break up at 11 when Becca went home. I went to bed shortly afterwards, Martin and Donnie disappeared later on, Phil crawled off to something that wasn’t a sofa and Peter didn’t. And so the Long Mynd expedition ended.

As for the next expedition; we are beginning to plan it.

My Bit:

So we hadn't had much luck yesterday, the forecast for today wasn't amazing, and Phil was planning on departing 'by lunchtime' so that he could make a multi-hour trip to SVSP to get his glider - things looked like they were going to wrap up quite quickly! Peter Warner declared that he would stay until the evening if we wanted to and there was an extra space in his car (Paul and Donnie had already claimed the other two) I decided to risk it and stay - the worst case was simply to get back to Cambridge very late. Fortunately, it paid off! As Phil was driving off the airfield things started rolling and we soon had the hangar unpacked and ready to go.

Things started slowly - the weather wasn't supporting much in the way of lift, and Paul and Donnie bashed out a few training flights each. Immediately before lunch, I hopped in - and hey presto! - some very broken lift appeared. With Peter Warner in the back, I just missed out on the longest soaring flight of the day - and I only made 23 minutes! (Compared to 24...) Nonetheless, soaring well above the club's CFI in the DG505 and a K13 restored a lot of gliding love that had been dented on Wednesday's disaster-day. The afternoon was much the same kind of weather, essentially some circuit practice for all of us (much needed apparently!) with a chance for a solo at the end of the day - what I hadn't realised was that in the 10 minutes since taking a launch for a final check ride was that cloudbase had dropped a good 400 feet - and I quickly found myself with no horizon at all at 1300 feet or so. Needless to say, I came down PDQ and let someone else have a go! Even that flight ended in a short circuit because of cloud I think and we called it a day for the last time.

And so our expedition ended - a good week seemed to be had by all, I think.

Peter drove us home after a final excellent dinner and Donnie and I joined the group at Phil's house for some post-trip love, and I retreated early for some much needed sleep! 

A final note: as I said above, thank you all for coming; and if you've read all this thank you (and well done! ;-) )